Jekyll2019-03-05T08:21:47-05:00https://bitworking.org/BitWorkingJoe Gregorio - REST, Web, Python, Go, APIs, Dad, Husband, Maker, or any linear combination of such. Googler.
simplifying income2019-03-05T00:00:00-05:002019-03-05T06:45:02-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/03/simplifying-income<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18220756/bill-gates-tax-rate-70-percent-marginal-modern-monetary-theory">Bill Gates</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>In terms of revenue collection, you wouldn’t want to just focus on the
ordinary income rate, because people who are wealthy have a rounding error
of ordinary income.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would love to see the U.S. do away with categories of income (income, earned
interest, capital gains, etc) and make it all just one bucket and tax that at
a progressive rate.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioBill GatesConcentrated corporate power as a threat to democracy2019-03-05T00:00:00-05:002019-03-05T08:21:46-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/03/concentrated-corporate-power-as-a-threat-to-democracy<blockquote>
<p>In this essay, I will argue that the interaction of concentrated corporate
power and politics it a threat to the functioning of the free market economy
and to economic prosperity it can generate, and a threat to democracy as
well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w23593.pdf">Towards a Political Theory of the Firm</a> (PDF).</p>
<p>Glad to see the Chicago School of Economics trying to resuscitate their image
after <a href="https://boingboing.net/2017/10/25/stiglitz-vs-friedman.html">the previous damage they’ve
done</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioIn this essay, I will argue that the interaction of concentrated corporate power and politics it a threat to the functioning of the free market economy and to economic prosperity it can generate, and a threat to democracy as well.I’m not done trickling on you!2019-03-04T00:00:00-05:002019-03-04T21:22:33-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/03/im-not-done-trickling-on-you<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r5LtFnmPruU?start=1270" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>Look at poor Ken, so freaked out that everyone is talking about taxes.
Obviously a firm believer in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics">trickle-down economics</a>, his entire screed boils down to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.crazygames.com/game/dont-tax-me-bro">Don’t tax me, bro!</a> I’m not done trickling on you!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ironically he refers to Bill Gates, who appears <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18220756/bill-gates-tax-rate-70-percent-marginal-modern-monetary-theory">not to agree with Ken at all</a>.</p>
<p>To get the full context it’s useful to watch the video from the beginning
where Historian Rutger Bregman schools Michael Dell on his ignorant comment
about a top marginal tax rate of 70%:</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r5LtFnmPruU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioCEO Pay2019-03-04T00:00:00-05:002019-03-04T08:57:43-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/03/ceo-pay<p>I’ve said the Harvard MBA is the most second most damaging thing to happen to business in the last 40 years.
I might have to clarify that to “<a href="https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1db3jy3201d38/The-MBA-Myth-and-the-Cult-of-the-CEO">the <strong>myth</strong> of the Harvard MBA is the second
most damaging thing to happen to business in the last 40 years</a>”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We found no statistically significant alphas — despite testing every
possible school with a reasonable sample size. MBA programs simply do not
produce CEOs who are better at running companies, if performance is measured
by stock price return.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>But if there is no evidence that stock returns are attributable to CEOs,
then what justification is there for their stratospheric pay? How much
longer will investors and boards be fooled by randomness and hollow
credentialism?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Oh, and the first most damaging thing to happen to business in the past 40 years? <a href="https://boingboing.net/2017/10/25/stiglitz-vs-friedman.html">The Chicago School of Economics</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioI’ve said the Harvard MBA is the most second most damaging thing to happen to business in the last 40 years. I might have to clarify that to “the myth of the Harvard MBA is the second most damaging thing to happen to business in the last 40 years”.Arts and crafts2019-02-26T00:00:00-05:002019-02-26T10:15:30-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/02/arts-and-crafts<p>When you have a stoma <em>every day</em> is arts and crafts day.</p>
<p>I swear I’ve modified more articles of clothing than my sister did
during her entire teenage life in the 80s.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioWhen you have a stoma every day is arts and crafts day.gcsfuse and systemd –user2019-02-25T00:00:00-05:002019-02-25T09:10:59-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/02/gcsfuse-and-systemd-user<p>Google Cloud Storage has an officially supported <a href="https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/gcs-fuse">fuse client</a>!</p>
<p>This is something I have always wanted and would have expected for Google
Drive, but 🤷.</p>
<p>The only thing better than a fuse client is a fuse directory that gets
mounted automatically when you log in, which you can do fairly simply
using <code class="highlighter-rouge">systemd --user</code>, which is just systemd, but everthing runs as you.</p>
<p>Here’s a gist of how I set this up on my machine:</p>
<script src="https://gist.github.com/jcgregorio/3d30cb7673e80b85c2153db9ff8be7c4.js"></script>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioGoogle Cloud Storage has an officially supported fuse client!Google SRE Book and Workbook2019-02-22T00:00:00-05:002019-02-22T10:06:33-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/02/google-sre-book-and-workbook<p>I never realized the detail that the Google SRE book provided
<a href="https://landing.google.com/sre/sre-book/chapters/production-environment/">on the production environment at Google</a>,
including such things as D, Colossus, Jupiter, BNS, and GSLB.</p>
<p>Also there’s now <a href="https://landing.google.com/sre/workbook/toc/">The Site Reliability Workbook</a>, a hands-on implementation guide.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioI never realized the detail that the Google SRE book provided on the production environment at Google, including such things as D, Colossus, Jupiter, BNS, and GSLB.More TMI recovery stories2019-02-17T00:00:00-05:002019-02-17T11:48:09-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/02/more-tmi-recovery-stories<p><strong>This is another story from my recovery that might be TMI for some people. Read with caution, or skip.</strong></p>
<p>So <a href="https://bitworking.org/news/2019/01/a-thing-that-happened">while describing my initial hospitalization</a>
I mentioned an open question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What exactly my anus is supposed to be doing for those three months is a question I forget to ask.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And now I know from the questions and comments I’ve received that many of you
are curious too.</p>
<p>The answer turns out to be “nothing much” for most of the time, with
occassional bouts of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb">Phantom Limb</a> sensation.</p>
<p>Now the “phantom limb” in this case is my large intestines, which are no
longer hooked up to my rectum. The sensation they are missing is the pressure
that comes when stool builds up in the colon, which in turn triggers the
sensations of “needing to go”.</p>
<p>So one or two times a day I get the sensation of “needing to go”. I
logically know that’s an impossibility, but apparently my rectum is not swayed
by logic, so I had to look for alternative methods of getting the sensation to
go away. It turns out there is one way to get it to go away and that’s to go
and sit on the toilet as if I were having a bowl-movement. And I realize, as I
sit here, on the toilet, not having a bowl-movement, that what I’m really
doing in playing “make pretend” for my rectum. And it works!</p>
<p>I wonder if my rectum will be as grateful as my kids are for all the time I
spent playing “make pretend” with them?</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioThis is another story from my recovery that might be TMI for some people. Read with caution, or skip.Tim O’Reilly on Silicon Valley2019-02-08T00:00:00-05:002019-02-08T09:23:32-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/02/tim-oreilly-on-silicon-valley<p><a href="https://qz.com/1540608/the-problem-with-silicon-valleys-obsession-with-blitzscaling-growth/">The fundamental problem with Silicon Valley’s favorite growth strategy</a>
is great article by Tim O’Reilly on the fundamental harm Silicon Valley’s
single-minded pursuit of unicorns does to the whole economy.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioThe fundamental problem with Silicon Valley’s favorite growth strategy is great article by Tim O’Reilly on the fundamental harm Silicon Valley’s single-minded pursuit of unicorns does to the whole economy.The real value of a 70% top marginal tax rate2019-02-08T00:00:00-05:002019-02-08T09:38:30-05:00https://bitworking.org/news/2019/02/the-real-value-of-a-70-top-marginal-tax-rate<p>The last time we had a 70% top marginal tax rate in the U.S.
it generated very little revenue. That doesn’t mean it failed,
that means it was doing it’s job, as explained in
<a href="https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7065.html">The opportunity cost of firm payouts</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://brid.gy/publish/twitter"></a></p>Joe GregorioThe last time we had a 70% top marginal tax rate in the U.S. it generated very little revenue. That doesn’t mean it failed, that means it was doing it’s job, as explained in The opportunity cost of firm payouts.